27th April 2010 -Central Europe – Linz and Salzburg

Linz is a beautiful city very picturesque. It was one of Adolf Hitler's favorite places and he spent his school days there. His Nazi movement built a massive iron and steel works there which still employs many of the locals. It is a very prosperous town.

We were only in Linz for about 1 hour. We had to go to the middle of the city and take a photograph of the Dreifaltigkeitssaule or Trinity Column. This is a 2o meter tall column of Marble that was carved in 1723 to celebrate the town's deliverance from war, fire and plagues. It is carved into a spiral shape and covered in little angels and creatures. So not what I had expected. It is very whimsical.

We got a bonus in experiences because also in that square was an large art piece that as erected by the Art School in Linz as an example f there work as they have open week at t5he institute next week. This was a huge piece that looked like an eye; the unique thing is that it was made out of T-shirts. Thousands of T- shirts in different colors were hung to create this art. We thought it was so neat the cab driver thought it was an

abomination

.

Salzburg – the land of Mozart and Sound of Music
We hustled back to the station and went on to the city of Salzburg. One of our Bonus challenges for big points was to cross the border between Austria and another country and prove it. Well when I was reading the guide book I found the neatest thing. It is a tour of a salt mine in Austria that stretches in Germany and during the tour you take a small boat across a lake and into Germany 300 meters below the surface of the earth. So we decided that was neat plan and off we set after a 2 hour train ride.
The most important industry in Salzburg between the years 1587 – 1612 was the mining of salt from the salt mines. This business was run by the most influential archbishop Wolf Dietriech von Raitenau. He fell from power when he lost a dispute with Bavaria over the salt mines. He died a prisoner. We were worried that the salt mine might have been closed when we got there but for once luck was in our favor and we did the tour.
The first thing we did was put on our white Oompa Loompa style boiler suits on top of all our own clothes. The mines are 10 degrees in temperature so these outfits help keep you warm and stopped the dripping salt from wetting your home clothes. Then we got on these funny little trains, they looked like a toy train and descended into the bowels of the earth.

Once we got off the train our guide told us some of the history of the mines and showed us a movie about the archbishop. Then we walked a distance and had to slide down these funny wooden slides. This slide was 27 meters long and looked scary but they were fun.

Then we walked some more and climbed onto a boat on the end of a small lake way down below the earths surface. This boat slowly glided across the lake and into Germany. The lady guide teased us and asked if we had our passports.

Then it was a couple more movies, another 47 meter slide which slide us back into Austria and then back on the funny train to the surface. This was a wonderful experience. It was so well done. I was very impressed. We also saw a replica of a man that they had found buried in the mines. He had been perfectly preserved because he was pickled by the salt. They removed him and took him out of the mines and within days he started to decay and smell. Well they have cleverly replaced a replica in the mine and tell the story.

We drove back to Salzburg city center and split up the teams to scavenge and made arrangements to meet at the required mandatory restaurant for dinner. Lils and I managed to visit the St. Peters Church, ride the funicular up to the old fort, find the chess game in town, took a picture of Lily holding up the world, tried to visit Mozart's house which was closed because we were too late, found some banks and found the first restaurant to eat apple strudel but they were sold out so went to the next for dinner. We met up with Zoe and Rainy, had dinner and then back to the train station to catch a train to Munich. We will get in too late to scavenge tonight but we will be in place to start first thing in the morning...